MOVIE REVIEW : King of ‘Sugar Hill’: Acting or Violence? : The drama set in Harlem about a drug lord who wants out has a strong cast, but its sensitive scenes are lost in the bloodshed.

Though Roemello Skuggs (Wesley Snipes) “serves up more heroin in Harlem than McDonald’s does hamburgers,” don’t think he’s a typical urban drug dealer.

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Smart enough to have been offered a full academic scholarship to Georgetown (he didn’t go, but that’s another story), Roemello is an introspective kind of guy who reads the New York Times, plays a fine game of chess and has an eye for art and design. A drug lord who wants out and the hero of “Sugar Hill” (citywide), he is presented as the exemplar of a lost generation, an individual who could have made something of his life if he hadn’t been trapped by the familiar socio-economic dynamics of the drug trade.

Yet watching “Sugar Hill” does not particularly arouse concern for Roemello, whose weary desire to quit his infernal business parallels the action in “Carlito’s Way” and innumerable other genre vehicles. Rather it is the gifted personnel who made this film who seem more trapped than anyone they portray on screen.

For until it sinks under the weight of excessive violence and a welter of overwrought plot contrivances, “Sugar Hill,” named for a once-vibrant Harlem neighborhood, has much going for it. Writer Barry Michael Cooper (“New Jack City”) and Cuban-born director Leon Ichaso (“Crossover Dreams”) know how to make this kind of material watchable and they’ve also managed to sprinkle thoughtful moments amid the general bloodshed.

These scenes showcase the acting styles of a cast that is deep in ability. Snipes’ authoritative performance is no surprise; his status as a preeminent screen actor grows with every picture. But at various moments “Sugar Hill” also gets fine work from Michael Wright as Raynathan, the hot-headed brother; from Theresa Randall as Melissa, the straight girlfriend; from Clarence Williams III, ex of “The Mod Squad,” as the addicted father, and a number of other performers.

But if African American actors can claim a talent pool that is as impressive in its own way as Britain’s, why do they invariably have to perform in a repetitive cycle of exploitative dramas about drugs in the cities and crime in the streets? It’s as pointless and exasperating as if Daniel Day-Lewis, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson and all the lesser Brits had to make film after film about Robin Hood and his Merry Men in order to get any time on screen.

And whenever the “Sugar Hill” filmmakers do manage to shoehorn in a sensitive, affecting scene, like Roemello feeding noodles to his ailing father, it is doubly frustrating to find it in a film whose off-putting violence will place it out of bounds to many serious filmgoers. What a waste.

With its jazzy score and discreetly muted color cinematography (by Bojan Bazelli, who did fine work on Abel Ferrara’s “Body Snatchers”), “Sugar Hill” certainly makes an attempt to be taken seriously. But the careful line it walks between the epic-heroic and the pretentious blurs as its story unfolds, and finally its flimsy narrative can’t support the serious notions everyone wants to hang on it.

It is typical of “Sugar Hill’s” style that it opens with Roemello enmeshed in one of his bouts of high-flown introspection while simultaneously reliving, in wrenching flashback, the scene of his mother dying of an overdose. “Dear mother, it seems like an eternity since you’ve been gone, so much has happened, so many dreams have turned into nightmares,” he muses in voice-over. “The boy you love has become the man you feared.”

In plainer English, that means that Roemello and his brother now traffic in the substances that ruined both his parents’ lives, even working with Gus (Abe Vigoda), the very mob figure who destroyed his family. No wonder he’s having second thoughts about his career choice.

More than psychological factors, however, cause Roemello to wonder if he’s doing the right thing. The mob is bringing in Lolly (“The Hand That Rocked the Cradle’s” Ernie Hudson), a dealer from Brooklyn who specializes in crack cocaine, to share the neighborhood trade, and Roemello has met Melissa, an aspiring actress who might be the best reason of all to pack up and get away.

This story line is terribly familiar, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be energized, and for a while director Ichaso and company do an effective job of alternating flash with the film’s more deliberate moments.

But finally Roemello talks once too often of being “consumed by chaos, guilt, grief,” and the intensity of the violence becomes such that anyone intrigued by the film’s softer moments will tune out. Wading through blood is too much of a price to pay for “Sugar Hill’s” pluses, and it’s a shame the movie business has made it difficult for them to be experienced any other way.

‘Sugar Hill’

Wesley Snipes: Roemello Skuggs

Michael Wright: Raynathan Skuggs

Theresa Randle: Melissa Holly

Clarence Williams III: A. R. Skuggs

Abe Vigoda: Gus Molino

Ernie Hudson: Lolly Jonas

Beacon presents a South Street Entertainment Group production, released by 20th Century Fox. Director Leon Ichaso. Producers Rudy Langlais & Gregory Brown. Executive producers Armyan Berstein, Tom Rosenberg, Marc Abraham. Screenplay Barry Michael Cooper. Cinematographer Bojan Bazelli. Editor Gary Karr. Costumes Eduardo Castro. Music Terence Blanchard. Production design Michael Helmy. Art director J. Jergensen. Set decorator Kathryn Peters. Running time: 2 hours, 3 minutes.

MPAA rating: R, for “intense drug related violence, graphic heroin use and strong language.” Times guidelines: a death via overdose, a scene of strong sexual violence and numerous beatings, shootings and violent deaths.